Bitcoin and Crypto: Tips for Beginners Kiosk Marketplace

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency continue to fascinate people of all ages and career orientations, and the self-service equipment industry, a payments-focused entity, is no exception.

As cryptocurrency expands, so does the need to educate newcomers on this highly technical and controversial subject. That’s why the recent Amusement Expo International in Las Vegas offered a session, “Cryptocurrency and Coin-Op, Putting the Pieces Together.”

One of the challenges newbies face when learning about cryptocurrency is the amount of misinformation that crypto veterans claim is pervasive.

Panelists Conrad Storz, Mike Lee, Brian Halsey and Tom Graham, Jr. discusses the importance of learning about bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

“Don’t go to major media outlets like CNN or the Wall Street Journal,” panelist Brian Halsey, an attorney and professor of business law, said during the AEI session. He says the reporting in these outlets is biased and inaccurate.

“You have to do your own research and start with the basics,” Halsey said.

Halsey and fellow panelists Mike Lee, president, Automatic Coin Vending in Chester, Pennsylvania, Tom Graham Jr., owner, Games Unlimited Inc., Milbank, South Dakota, and Conrad Storz, owner of Storz Amusements in Jeffersonville, Louisiana, agreed that people need to learn about cryptocurrency gradually.

“Just don’t spend any money you don’t want to lose,” Lee said, adding that a one-day session won’t educate anyone enough about cryptocurrency. “The space is just too big, too wide, too complex.”

Bitcoin has a future

The panelists nevertheless agreed that cryptocurrency has a bright future, despite what many critics have claimed.

“It’s here, it’s real, it’s going to be here, it’s not going away, it’s got the attention of everyone on Facebook up to the United States government,” Storz said. “If a person in the future does not have at least half of a bitcoin in their pocket, they will be the underclass.”

With regard to bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, “some institutional investors are taking money off the table; eventually they will come back,” Halsey said.

When governments regulate bitcoin, as Halsey said is expected, large institutions will invest significant sums, which should smooth out the price swings that have made many potential users wary.

“The rule is you should never sell bitcoin,” Halsey said. In 2017, he sold $650 worth of bitcoin to buy an AR-15 rifle. Now he has a $40,000 AR-15.

“I’m going to be very annoyed when it’s worth $1 million,” he said.

As more people buy and use bitcoin, the price is expected to rise in the long term since the supply of bitcoins is limited by the program code.

Bitcoin price fluctuates

Halsey acknowledged that bitcoin’s price sometimes fluctuates relative to stocks and sometimes with economic shocks such as news of inflation.

“But in the long term, because there are only 21 million bitcoins that are (ever) available, and that’s it,” he said. “Bitcoin by its very nature you can’t increase above the 21 million hard-coded into the system. Because of that, it protects long-term.”

He said that hyperinflation (in the government’s currency) will help bitcoin, which he considers a deflationary asset.

“As bitcoin adoption continues, it will behave more like an inflationary asset,” he said.

Who you should listen to

Halsey encouraged beginners to listen to educational crypto podcasts. The best podcasts in his opinion are “The Breakdown” series with Nathaniel Whittemore. These are 15-minute daily analyzes of macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics and “big picture” power shifts, according to a description on Apple Podcasts.

Another podcast he recommended is “What Bitcoin Did” by Peter McCormack which can be accessed under the title. These are podcasts of 60 to 90 minutes that are posted weekly. Halsey said it’s excellent for beginners.

The next recommended podcast for beginners is the Pomp Podcast by Anthony Pompliano, a daily 30-minute podcast.

Other helpful sources according to Halsey include:

• “We Study Billionaires” by Investor’s Podcast Network, a semi-weekly podcast with guest investors.
• “The Bitcoin Standard” with Saifedean Ammous, which Halsey called the most famous bitcoin book. He recommended waiting until you are well versed in the basics before reading this book.
• The Stephan Livera bitcoin podcast, also on the technical side, helps explain how bitcoin and money in general are evolving.
• Cryptocurrency news sites like Coin Desk and CoinMarketCap.

“You don’t have to listen to every episode of every podcast,” Halsey said. “You don’t need to know everything before you start.”

Twitter is also a good source for learning the most up-to-date information about cryptocurrency, he said, but news reports that are more than two or three months old should be disregarded.

“In the crypto world, a week is a year in real life,” Halsey said. “Start with the new things and move forward; don’t move backwards.”

Cryptocurrency apps like Coinbase, Swan and Cash App are helpful for beginners, Lee said. These apps allow people to create an account and link their bank account and enter a certain amount to automatically buy bitcoin.

Bitcoin Mining Explored

While the panelists agreed that beginners should start buying bitcoin as they learn about it, they discouraged listeners from trying to mine bitcoin. Mining is the process by which new bitcoins are created. This is achieved with the help of sophisticated computers. Bitcoins are created when the computer solves a complex math problem.

The cost of computers for mining bitcoin is now about $10,000 apiece, Halsey said, and it will take about a year and three months to recover the investment in mining equipment, not including the cost of electricity.

An alternative is to join a mining pool, a group of miners who work together to mine and distribute the payments based on each party’s contribution to the pool.

However, one listener who said he joined a mining pool of tens of thousands of people said the chances of earning bitcoin with the miners are “one in a million”.

Bitcoin and self-service payment

Another listener asked the amusement operator panelists why they don’t offer bitcoin acceptance on their amusement machines.

Lee responded that bitcoin transaction processing is currently not fast enough and that bitcoin payment technology for self-service devices has not developed sufficiently.

Another listener volunteered that the Lightning Network, a second layer added to the bitcoin blockchain that allows for off-chain transactions, enables faster transactions and can be integrated into gaming equipment payment systems.

Although processing time is still an issue, an advantage of bitcoin as a payment method is that transaction costs are very low compared to credit cards.

According to this, Halsey said that a stablecoin, a computerized token representing a dollar, can also be used for payment and has zero transaction fees.

“In terms of transactions, it’s either going to be bitcoin Lightning Network or it’s probably going to be stablecoin,” Halsey said.

Photo: Networld Media Group.